Abstracta in Concreta: Engaging Museum Collections in PRS Research (original) (raw)
Related papers
Olms (open access), 2022
Museums are receiving currently a lot of public attention with regard to the material objects they host, and the historical and contemporary handling of these objects. There are global public debates about the origins, paths, and futures of museum things. Since at least 2018, with the report on the restitution of African cultural heritage, which Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy presented to the French president, the legitimacy of objects from colonial contexts in museums and collections in the global north has been widely debated. Furthermore, disciplines within cultural studies, including the study of religions, have taken a material turn, and now focus on the material, and thus also on museum things. This has brought the material dimension of religion into the focus of research in various disciplines. Studying materiality can thus open a pathway for potential critique of established patterns in research, historiography, and society, widening our perspective. It was against this multifaceted background that the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Religion (ZIR) and the Museum of Religions (Religionskundliche Sammlung) of the Philipps-University Marburg, the Museum of the Frankfurt Cathedral, and the GRASSI Museum of Ethnology in Leipzig formed a research network on the topic of Dynamics of Religious Things in Museums (Dynamiken religiöser Dinge im Museum, REDIM in short). This cooperative alliance, under the leadership of the ZIR, is based on the common interest in the relevance of religious materials in museums for social transformation, and in how social processes are reflected by material things.
Considerations in Relation to the Museography for Objects of a Religious Nature
2013
T he modern museum is a creation of the Enlightenment, closely related to the illusion of dominating and creating order in the world as well as closely linked to secularisation: therefore it is not by chance even its architectural typology recalls, from its very origins, a non-religious temple. 1 From time immemorial, the eradication of objects from their original context (in our case: churches, tombs, altars...) will alter its characteristics: thus becoming aesthetic, historical, artistic and ethnographic proof, which are utilised by researchers as transformed objects. Afterwards, these objects have been continuously utilised, within the museum context, to celebrate nations or social classes, for education or indoctrination, to promote behaviour or opinions and to exercise a social control.
"Narrating Religion through Museums"
In Narrating Religion, ed. Sarah Iles Johnston, MacMillan Interdisciplinary Handbook, pp. 333-352. Museums narrate religion through objects, words, and space. Using many examples from a wide range of museums from North America and Europe, I discuss how museums are sites for both the curation and the contestation of what makes an object religious or spiritual. Focused on questions such as how museums engage with audiences that continue to venerate objects in their collections and respond to repatriation claims from nations and peoples who demand the return of their objects, the essay also considers museums founded explicitly by religious groups who seek to narrate religion on their own terms.
Journal of Religion in Europe, 2011
In using the critical term museality in aesthetics of religion, it is our aim in this article to reveal the socio-cultural embeddedness of museums in Western societies and beyond. To do this we draw on two distinct cultural and sociological models of society, dispositive theory and Luhmann's communicational systems theory. Dispositive theory allows us to include non-discursive practices and materialisations in the aesthetic analysis of religious identification strategies mediated through museums and exhibitions. The boundaries, environment and self-referentiality of the system museum are discussed with a view to the shifting place and visibility of religious and secular messages in museum contexts. The focus on museality leads beyond museums to discover object wanderings, religious re-interpretations and museum displays in a number of other socio-cultural fields.
Published in 'Religion in Museums: Global and Multidisciplinary Perspectives' (2017) edited by Gretchen Buggeln, Crispin Paine, S. Brent Plate. Bloomsbury, pp. 231-238.
RELIGION IN MUSEUMS: Global and Multidisciplinary Perspectives (Intro & TOC)
Contributors from a variety of disciplines and institutions explore the work of museums from many perspectives, including cultural studies, religious studies, and visual and material culture. Most museums throughout the world – whether art, archaeology, anthropology or history museums – include religious objects, and an increasing number are beginning to address religion as a major category of human identity. With rising museum attendance and the increasingly complex role of religion in social and geopolitical realities, this work of stewardship and interpretation is urgent and important. Religion in Museums is divided into six sections: museum buildings, reception, objects, collecting and research, interpretation of objects and exhibitions, and the representation of religion in different types of museums. Topics covered include repatriation, conservation, architectural design, exhibition, heritage, missionary collections, curation, collections and display, and the visitor's experience. Case studies provide comprehensive coverage and range from museums devoted specifically to the diversity of religious traditions, such as the State Museum of the History of Religion in St Petersburg, to exhibitions centered on religion at secular museums, such as Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam, at the British Museum.